3 Comments to “Gaslighting”

Yes, Duncan, one of the many unanticipated benefits of the Toddler Cheeto’s reign of terror is the public’s new awareness of narcissistic personality disorder and it’s main technique of abuse, gaslighting.

When a dependent child grows up around one or more caregivers who pull shit like this, the kid is forced to endure a crazy house of mirrors where the people they trust to protect and guide them instead constantly distort reality into whatever makes the parent feel good about themselves in the moment. The child has no real identity or purpose other than to serve the parent’s ego, the parent sees them as an extension of themselves, like a possession, not a discrete person with preferences and boundaries.

Abuse this pervasive and ongoing warps crucial stages in a child’s psychological development and they end up adopting one of two survival strategies: They either become a clinical narcissist, themselves, to emulate those fuckers and make them proud or they become a codependent who serves their masters and hopes the crumbs of affection they receive from them will be enough.

They never are.

The closest I come to compassion for Orange Julius Caesar is the knowledge that he must’ve gone through emotional hell as a child. Doesn’t excuse being a dick now, though.

PS: While the above video is accurate, its simplistic delivery does not do justice to the seriousness of gaslighting and the very real dangers faced by people caught in a clinical narcissist’s web. You Tube is rife with lectures, presentations, and interviews featuring professionals trained to deal with assholes of this ilk, which is particularly handy if you lack the resources to commission said professionals.

If you have even the slightest suspicion of narcissistic abuse around you, I urge you to look up narcissistic personality disorder, covert narcissism, and complex post traumatic stress disorder on You Tube. It saved my life.